


Flower Language

by Trillian_Astra



Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Fluff, M/M, Multi, OT3, Threesome - F/M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-02-13
Updated: 2013-02-13
Packaged: 2017-11-29 04:25:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/682739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trillian_Astra/pseuds/Trillian_Astra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Joly and Bossuet have this complicated is-it-a-relationship-or-not thing going on.</p><p>Then a girl named Musichetta starts working at the hospital and two becomes three.</p><p>(set in the same universe as In My (Un)Life, so the werewolfy stuff will come up later.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Flower Language

“Hey, it’s Bossuet, right? You’re Joly’s friend…”

He smiled at the nurse. He was getting used to being recognised around here, though it was surprising that they’d started using that nickname. “That’s right. Is he around?”

“I’ll page him for you,” she said brightly before she hurried off to deal with another patient, leaving him sitting on a hospital bed holding his left arm carefully still.

A few minutes later Joly appeared, looking more harried than usual. “Really? _Again_?”

“I’m sitting here in pain, you know. I think it’s broken,” he indicated his arm.

“Do I even want to know how what happened this time?” Joly said, adding “…actually don’t tell me, I don’t need any more reasons to worry about you.”

“You don’t need to worry about me, though.”

“How many times have you been here this month?” Joly said pointedly. When his friend looked away in embarrassment, he added, “Sorry, that was harsh. I worry about everyone, you know, I just… can’t seem to help it. So worrying about you… it’s not out of my way, so I’ll keep doing it if you don’t mind.”

Bossuet smiled. “It’s OK. Hey, do they do a loyalty card or anything here? ‘Collect ten stamps and get a free minor operation’, something like that?”

“…no, no we don’t. Because this is a _hospital_ , not a coffee shop.”

He looked down at his arm. “So what’s the situation?”

“Broken wrist, I think. I’ll get an X-ray to make sure.”

“Oh good, another cast.”

“Well, stop breaking limbs if you don’t like casts. Even _we_  don’t heal that fast.”

***

Joly had gone to the hospital coffee shop for his break, and while he was sitting at the table with his not-quite-undrinkable coffee, he happened to glance across the lobby to the flower shop opposite.

The counter at the flower shop was not manned by the elderly Mrs Huchloup as usual. Rather, there was a young woman with dark curly hair, picking out a bouquet for a customer and smiling at something the man said.

Without knowing what he was doing, he drank some of his coffee… and was immediately jolted out of his reverie by its bitterness. He shook himself, looked at his watch, and stood up. Before he left, though, he asked the coffee shop waitress who had taken over the flower shop.

“Oh, that’s Etta. She’s Mrs Huchloup’s great-niece or something.”

“Right. Thanks, Lottie,” he said absently as he left to walk back to A&E.

***

Duly x-rayed and fitted with a cast on his wrist, Lesgles was discharged with strict instructions from Joly to buy some calcium supplements from the chemist (there was also something about strengthening his bones to prevent breaks, but he tuned most of it out). As he made his way out of the hospital, he wondered what he could do to show Joly how much he appreciated him.

He was mulling this problem over when he saw the flower shop. _Say it with flowers_ , he thought _, ...well, it’s a start._ He went over to the pretty girl behind the counter.

“Hi,” she said brightly, “what can I do for you?”

“I need to let someone know that they’re appreciated, do you have any recommendations?”

“Well,” she said thoughtfully, “there is one thing that’s good for appreciation, gratitude, that kind of thing… how do you feel about these?” She picked up what looked like a small sunflower and held it out to him.

“Sunflowers?” He wracked his brains, trying to remember whether Joly had ever expressed either a love or a deadly hatred of sunflowers. “Sunflowers might do it.”

“ _Dwarf_  sunflowers, actually. Anything else, or just those?”

“Um. Just the sunflowers, I think.”

“Great,” she said as she picked out a half-dozen additional sunflowers and started wrapping them. “So who’s the lucky lady?”

“Um. They’re for my friend, actually. He works here. I… have accidents, and he sorts me out. A lot.”

“Oh, that’s nice.” She finished the wrapping with a length of ribbon (yellow, to match the sunflowers), and held the bouquet out to him.

“Looks great,” he said. “How much?”

“This one’s on the house.”

“Oh, I couldn’t…”

“I insist. You can pay for the next one. I’m Etta, by the way.”

He stared at her, open-mouthed. “… Laigle. Nice to meet you.”

***

Joly came back to the flat exhausted and ready to fall straight into bed. He opened the front door and had to rub his eyes in disbelief – the front room was spotless, far from the disaster area it had been that morning. And sitting on the table was a bouquet of flowers in a vase.

He frowned, thinking that possibly he had walked into the wrong flat, and picked up the card that he could see sticking out of the bouquet.

 _Apparently these mean Appreciation_. _Thanks for everything. B._

He sighed.

“Sunflowers?”

His flatmate appeared from the kitchen.  “The flower girl at the hospital suggested  them. You’re not fatally allergic or anything, are you?”

“No, not to sunflowers. How did you manage all this?” he gestured at the unusally tidy flat. 

“It wasn’t that bad.”

“Well, message received and understood.” Joly put the card down on the table. “And, um, you’re welcome.” He kissed Bossuet’s cheek, and smiled. “You’re really, really welcome.”

***

“So what’s up with Bossuet?” Lottie asked her new co-worker.

“Who?”

“You know, shaved head, broken wrist, you gave him those sunflowers?”

“That guy said his name was Laigle,” Etta said.

“Oh, yeah… that’s his _actual_  name. Bossuet’s a nickname, everyone calls him by it.”

“Right.”

“So what’s up? How come you gave him those flowers for free?”

“I thought he was sweet.”

“Oh,” Lottie said, looking disappointed. “If you’re, like, _interested_ in him, don’t bother. I’m pretty sure he and Joly – he’s one of the junior doctors, you know, the cute one – are, like, _seeing_  each other. It’s a shame, why are so few of the doctors single? And, like, straight?”

“He did say the flowers were to show someone he appreciated them. A male someone.”

“There you go, then. Shame…”

***

Joly was running out of ideas.

He’d walked across the lobby three times now, trying to work up the courage to go over to the flower shop to talk to Etta. But every opening he came up with sounded awful even in his head, and every time he started to go over to her an actual customer had been there.

He was still thinking when he felt a tap on his shoulder.

“Hey,”

He spun around to see Etta looking at him. “Is there something you wanted?”

“Um. No, nothing…”

She snorted. “Liar. You’ve been pacing in front of my shop for twenty minutes now.”

“OK, I… wanted to ask if you wanted to… get coffee or something. Maybe. With me, I mean.”

She looked at him curiously. “Not here, though, somewhere with drinkable coffee.”

“OK, fine, yeah…”

“My lunch break is at one. You can buy me a sandwich as well.”

When one o’clock came, Joly was nervously waiting near the shop as she finished up with one last customer. Then she put the ‘Closed’ sign up and went to join him. They ended up at a café near the hospital. Once they were sitting down, each with a sandwich and a coffee in front of them, Joly said,

“So, is Etta short for anything?”

“Mmhm,” she nodded. “It’s silly.”

“I won’t laugh, I promise.”

“…Musichetta,” she said with a mock-grimace. “My parents were romantics, OK?”

He shrugged. “I think it’s a lovely name.

“Did the sunflowers do the trick?” she said.

He frowned. “Oh, it was _you_ who suggested those. Um. Yeah, the message got through.”

“Your friend seems really sweet.”

“Uh, yeah, I guess he is. He just has bad luck. And a lot of accidents. And a best friend who’s a doctor.”

“So, you’re not, a couple or anything?”

“What?” he said, surprised.

“It’s nothing, just hospital gossip.”

“Right. Um, we’re just… best friends, and we sort of live together, but only because he doesn’t really live anywhere and just crashes at my place more often than at anyone else’s, and obviously I care about him, but I don’t really know what we are…”

“Relax, it’s OK. Whatever it is, it sounds like you guys have a really solid thing going. And if you wanted to… go out another time, maybe, I’d like that.”

Joly blinked at her. “You’d…”

“I’m asking you out, idiot.”

“Oh.”

“Are you saying yes?”

“Um… OK, yes, I’d like that.”

Before they each went back to work after lunch, she handed him a flower. Specifically, a yellow rosebud. “See if you can figure it out,” she said mischievously.

 

 


End file.
